What are the chances? Mixed race sisters have one black and one white child each by the same fathers

At first glance, they appear to be just a group of smiling young friends.

But these bundles of energy are not simply playmates but twin brothers and their cousins, two sisters.

The
amazing genetic fluke happened when mixed-race sisters Sharon and Sonia
Harris each gave birth to one black and one white child.

Sonia Brown, left, with her boys Cameron, left, and Kyle and sister Sharon Harris and her girls Kayleigh and Paige, far right. A rare genetic fluke means they
both have one child with light hair and pale skin and another with
brown hair and darker skin

While Sonia’s
five-year-old twins, Cameron and Kyle, have similar boisterous
personalities, Cameron has brown skin and dark, curly hair, while his
brother has white skin and blond hair.

Their older cousins also possess
different characteristics, with seven-year-old Paige’s dark complexion
and hair contrasting with five-year-old Kayleigh’s pale skin, blue eyes
and long blonde locks.

Their mother, Sharon, has a white partner, Malcolm Holloway, 32, while the twins’ father, Phillip Bradley, 42, is also white.

Sonia, a 40-year-old lunchtime supervisor from Erdington, Birmingham, said: ‘I was really shocked when the boys were born.

‘Cameron came out first, and then the next thing we saw was a little pair of white legs and a white bottom.

‘I just thought, “what’s happened?”.

Unusual cousins: Kayleigh (second right) and Paige's (right) mother Sharon said people who knew their family now didn't think anything of the physical difference between their children

‘The doctors said it was very
unusual, but that it does happen. People don’t realise they are twins
at first, and although they are not identical, once I tell people they
are twins they do see the similarities.

‘They are very bubbly, lively and so energetic.’

The children are all close and enjoy spending time together, playing computer games, football and racing around on their bikes.

Sharon,
35, from Birmingham, said: ‘The girls sometimes ask why one of them is
dark-skinned and the other is light-skinned but I tell them Paige looks
like me and Kayleigh looks like her daddy.’

She
added: ‘When they were younger I did use to get some funny looks from
people in the street and when we go on holiday people often assume the
girls are just friends.

‘It doesn’t bother us in the slightest – we wouldn’t change our children for the world.’

Steve Jones, a professor of genetics at University College London, said the siblings were different colours simply because Paige and Cameron had inherited more of their mothers’ genes, while Kayleigh and Kyle had inherited more of their fathers’ genes.

He added: ‘It is a surprisingly common phenomenon.’

Last month, the Daily Mail pictured another set of Birmingham twins, four-year-olds Marcia and Millie Biggs, who are also black and white, as they prepared for their first day at Osborne Junior School, Erdington.

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Mixed race sisters amazed when they both have 'one white child and one brown one'